Capacitive touch sensing devices have found significant utility in a wide variety of applications and systems. For example, capacitive touch pads are commonly used in portable computers. Similarly, capacitive touch screens are encountered in automated teller machines (ATMs), airport check-in kiosks, and in virtually countless other implementations. Capacitive touch sensing devices are also proving beneficial in smaller devices such as, for example, portable music players, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and cellphones. As the utilization of, and corresponding demand for, capacitive touch sensing devices increases, the rate at which such capacitive touch sensing devices are manufactured must also increase.
In order to meet the demand for capacitive touch sensing devices, corresponding manufacturing processes must achieve considerable throughput. Additionally, such manufacturing processes must remain cost effective. Furthermore, to ensure customer satisfaction, it is imperative that the manufactured capacitive touch sensing devices operate in compliance with promised specifications and performance requirements.
One method to ensure that manufactured capacitive touch sensing devices meet corresponding performance requirements is to manually test each capacitive touch sensing device using a test bench or similar testing apparatus. Such an approach is time consuming, labor intensive, and unreasonably expensive. Hence, such an approach is not practical. While random or “spot-testing” of manufactured capacitive touch sensing devices may reduce the time, labor, and cost associated with testing of the manufactured capacitive touch sensing devices, it is still possible that capacitive touch sensing devices which do not meet promised specifications and performance requirements will be released to customers.
Hence, it would be advantageous to have a method for testing capacitive touch sensing devices wherein the method does not suffer from the drawbacks described above. It would further be advantageous to have a method for testing capacitive touch sensing devices wherein the method is able to ensure that capacitive touch sensing devices, which do not meet promised specifications and performance requirements, are not released to customers.